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“The platinum-bearing rocks... were not uncovered until the river had cut down nearly to its present level.”

J. T. Pardee

-U.S. Geological Survey, 1929-

More Than Gold: Searching Our East Fork Lewis River Paydirt for Platinum

When you pan material from our gold claim on the East Fork Lewis River, gold is obviously the main attraction. But before you dump those last black sands out of your pan, there is another precious metal worth looking for.

Platinum.

Platinum has been historically recovered from the East Fork Lewis River. This is not just an old prospecting rumor. It was documented by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Washington Department of Natural Resources, and some of the historical descriptions are detailed enough that we actually know what the platinum looked like, where it accumulated, and even how it behaved around a magnet.

That makes panning our claim material a little more interesting than most paydirts.

So when you finish recovering your gold, don't be too quick to throw away what is left.

Platinum Was Historically Mined Downstream From Our Claim

Placer mining was taking place on the East Fork Lewis River by the late 1800s. One of the best documented operations belonged to Harvey McMunn, who worked the East Fork several miles downstream from where our claim is located today.

McMunn's operation reportedly produced approximately 17.5 ounces of gold and 1.5 ounces of platinum. At a time when many of the early placer operations in the area were shutting down, McMunn continued working his ground specifically because platinum was present.

That is a substantial amount of platinum for a small placer operation in southwest Washington.

The Washington Department of Natural Resources later called the East Fork occurrence noteworthy because it represented one of the relatively few documented occurrences of placer platinum in Washington. Historical testing found gold and platinum together in heavy black-sand concentrates composed mainly of magnetite.

And there is an even more important detail for anyone panning our dirt.

The Platinum Was Found on Bedrock

Washington's Gold in Washington and its later prospecting handbook describe the historic East Fork deposit in unusually practical terms:

The gold and platinum occurred in a thin layer of gravel directly on bedrock and in cracks in the bedrock.

Gold was also reported in higher terrace gravels, but platinum was not.

For me, that may be the most interesting part of the entire story because our claim contains a tremendous amount of exposed bedrock.

There are places on our stretch of river where you are not digging through ten or twenty feet of old gravel hoping to eventually reach the bottom. The river has already exposed large areas of the underlying rock. There are cracks, crevices, depressions, potholes and small pockets where heavy material can settle.

That is exactly where I collect our paydirt from.

What Does East Fork Platinum Actually Look Like?

Fortunately, the early geologists left us an excellent description.

The platinum grains from the East Fork were described as "dull tin-white" in color. They were generally smooth, although some had small pits containing iron oxide.

Some grains were flattened, but they were specifically described as "flat rather than flaky". Others were rounded, almost like tiny pieces of shot.

And most of it was small.

The documented particles ranged from extremely fine specks up to approximately the size of a "small pinhead".

So when you are looking through the bottom of your pan, don't expect a bright white platinum nugget to jump out at you.

Watch for:

Dull silver-gray or tin-white metallic grains
Smooth particles rather than flaky material
Flattened grains that still look solid and metallic
Tiny rounded grains, sometimes almost shot-like
Fine metallic specks mixed among the black sands
Small pits or rusty-looking iron-oxide spots on a gray metallic grain
Anything unusually heavy that refuses to wash out with the lighter material

A 10x jeweler's loupe is useful. A small digital microscope is even better.

The biggest mistake would be assuming that every gray or black particle remaining after the gold is gone is worthless.

Whatever You Do, Don't Throw Away the Magnetite

This is where East Fork platinum gets really interesting.

Most prospectors use a magnet during cleanup because magnetite makes up a large portion of black sand. Pull out the magnetite and suddenly the remaining gold is much easier to see.

That works great...just don't throw the magnetic material away with our paydirt like you would with other paydirts.

Historical testing found that most of the East Fork platinum was "strongly attracted to an ordinary horseshoe magnet". Researchers believed the platinum contained as much as approximately 10 percent iron, giving the natural platinum alloy an unusually strong magnetic response.

Think about what that means during a normal cleanup.

You finish your pan.

You see your gold.

You run a magnet through the remaining black sand.

A pile of magnetite jumps onto the magnet.

You toss it.

And there is at least a possibility that the exact fraction you just threw away was the fraction most likely to contain the type of platinum historically recovered from this river.

So when panning our claim material, I recommend treating the magnetic fraction as a second concentrate, not as waste.

How To Pan Our Dirt if Specifically Searching for Platinum

You do not need to completely change the way you pan.

The biggest difference happens at the very end.

Pan normally and recover your gold. Work the material down until you are left with your heavy black-sand concentrate.
Slow down during the final cleanup. This is not the time for aggressive washing. The historical platinum could be considerably smaller and less visually obvious than the gold.
Watch the bedrock material especially closely. If your paydirt contains material taken from bedrock cracks or pockets, I would give those concentrates extra attention because the historic platinum downstream was specifically reported in bedrock cracks and in the thin gravel directly over bedrock.
Separate the magnetite instead of discarding it. Put a magnet inside a plastic bag or small plastic container and use it to pull the magnetic material away from the rest of the concentrate.
Save that magnetic fraction in its own vial or container. Label it "magnetic black sand" and come back to it later.
Save the remaining nonmagnetic heavies too. Platinum is not magnetic. Just because some of the platinum on our the East Fork Lewis River had iron it doesn't meant that every possible speck of platinum in the river has to behave exactly like the historic grains that were tested.
Dry the concentrate and look at it under magnification. A dull tin-white metallic grain is much easier to distinguish from black magnetite when everything is dry and spread thinly across a contrasting surface.
Pick out anything suspicious. Fine tweezers, a needle, small brush or snuffer can help.
Keep questionable grains instead of trying to decide immediately. A tiny vial labeled "possible platinum" costs essentially nothing to save.

Color and magnetism alone cannot positively identify platinum, but they can tell you which particles deserve a closer look.

There May Be More Exposed Platinum today Than There Was 100 Years Ago

There is another part of the old geological report that has made people dismiss major portions of the East Fork Lewis River for gold and platinum.

When J.T. Pardee investigated the East Fork platinum nearly a century ago, he believed the platinum was locally derived. He also observed that it appeared to be confined to the river's present channel rather than the older terrace deposits.

His explanation was that the platinum-bearing rocks may not have been exposed until the East Fork had cut downward nearly to its then-current level.

That raises an obvious question:

Have there been more changes to the river since his investigation in 1929?

The answer is yes. There have been some major changes.

The East Fork is a powerful, free-flowing river that has experienced fairly recent flood events. One particularly dramatic example came in February 1996, when flow on the East Fork was estimated at approximately 28,600 cubic feet per second. The Forest Service reported that this was nearly 50 percent greater than the next-largest flood during 67 years of records, with the USGS estimating a recurrence interval of 500 years or more.

Events like that can move enormous quantities of gravel and cobble, scour channels, clean out bedrock cracks and expose bedrock that had previously been buried.

Pardee's believed that platinum had only fairly recently been released in the river due to the river progressively cutting down far enough to expose platinum-bearing material. Since then, nearly another century of erosion, floods, bedrock scour and channel change has occurred. Most notably the flood of February, 1996.

Every new bedrock surface exposed by erosion is another piece of geology that previous prospectors may never have had an opportunity to sample.

Historical Gold to Platinum Ratios

Historically, tests also showed a gold-to-platinum ratio of approximately 7:1 to 10:1 by weight in the platinum-bearing material on our river.

So even when platinum is found, gold was still much more abundant.

You might pan many pieces of gold before finding a single suspicious gray grain.

That is why I would not go through our paydirt expecting platinum to be as obvious as the gold. It is more rare, it is more hidden, and most people will miss it.

But you are almost guaranteed to not find it if you aren't looking for it and don't know how to look for it.

That's why I wrote this article.

What Should You Do With Your Saved Black Sands?

If you don't want to spend an hour examining every grain, don't.

Save them.

Put the magnetic concentrate from several bags into a labeled vial. Keep the nonmagnetic heavies separately if you want to be even more thorough.

Later, you can spread a little at a time beneath a loupe or microscope and look for suspicious metallic grains.

Take One More Look Before You Empty the Pan

For more than a century, people have come to the East Fork Lewis River looking for gold.

But we know that gold was not the only precious metal in this river.

Downstream from our claim, miners recovered documented placer platinum. The platinum accumulated with magnetite-rich black sands, concentrated directly on bedrock and inside bedrock cracks, and much of it was magnetic. The grains were tiny, dull tin-white and easy to mistake for something unimportant.

Our claim sits farther upstream on the same East Fork, in a section of river with extensive exposed bedrock. The river has continued eroding and scouring its channel for nearly another century since the early platinum investigations. And we now have evidence of serpentine-influenced geology farther upstream in the drainage as well.

Now you know what to look for.

So recover your gold. Save your black sands. Keep the magnetite.

And if you see a tiny dull gray-white metallic grain sitting in the bottom of your pan, don't wash it away...take a closer look.